THE final week of the season in the Master Lock and Safe sponsored Southport and District Badminton League saw the Shield and Watkinson Trophy finals take place.

The finalists in the Fleetwood Hesketh Shield were Burscough I and Victoria Hall II.

After four games the score was 2-2 so this was an exciting match to watch.

There were some exceedingly close games with only a couple of points making the difference.

In the end the ladies from Burscough won all their games and so the match ended 6-3 to Burscough.

The contenders for the League Shield were Pioneers I and Churchtown III.

This was another exciting match as the score was 4-4 going into the final mixed doubles.

The mother and son pairing of Maggie and Joe Daley of Pioneers were up against Tim Knighton and Janet Wright and in a fluctuating game Churchtown won giving them 5-4 victory.

The Watkinson Trophy is the premier trophy competition in the Southport and District Badminton League and this year it was between Woodvale VIII, in Division VI, and Formby Methodist I from Division IV.

Woodvale had 120 points start. All night the match ebbed and flowed, and it was never clear who would emerge as the winners.

Even the players did not know the result at the end of the match which proved very exciting for players and spectators alike.

When the points were added up a jubilant Formby Methodist raised the trophy – they had won by one point! Understandably Woodvale were disappointed to have lost by such a narrow margin.

Sincere thanks to Pat Boylett for contributing the above article and to the Umpires who officiated at these finals.